...Thus, at the present time, a drilling crew rivets no more than
5 lengths of four-pipe per day, whereas in former times the norm was considered to be 10—
12 lengths...
[43] ...As is evident from the tables, in recent months—September-October,
the situation improved somewhat, the footage rose to 1.33 sazhens per
well-month as against 0.8 s. for August; nevertheless this footage is
insignificant, since even at the beginning of the present year 1920 the footage per well-
month amounted, as was indicated above, to more than 5 sazhens, and in previous
normal years of work stood above 10 sazhens...
LENIN COLLECTION
[44—45] ...In well-organized drilling enterprises there were always
sufficient numbers of transport means; meanwhile now
transport is extremely inadequate and the available horses in many
cases are exhausted from lack of forage...
...Meanwhile our workshops,
servicing the drilling operations, have an
extremely limited number of workers, and at the same time the machines, en­
gines, apparatus and so forth are in acute need of repair, since in recent
years they have been almost entirely unrepaired...
...Taking into account the reserves of petroleum goods in Baku by the end
of the current navigation season and our anticipated output in 1921, it is easy to
observe that with an expected export from Baku in 1921 of approximately 300 mil­
lion poods of petroleum goods in all directions, the reserves of these for
export to Russia in 1922 will be extremely insufficient. This circumstance
requires the adoption of measures to increase our petroleum extraction and moreover in the
nearest possible future, for which it is necessary, aside from the resumption
of exploitation of many wells now compelled to be shut down due to labor shortage
that were previously being worked, also to take measures to supplement the number
of wells being exploited with new wells by means of intensified drilling. The reduction
of output and the lack of success of work is, apart from the lack of workers, substantially
conditioned also by the lack of transport means...
[45] ...Moreover, bearing in mind that the lack of materials and workers,
which, despite even the transfer of drilling to a shock-work group, will hardly
be substantially eliminated, limits the scope of drilling work, naturally,
in the selection of areas for drilling it is necessary to confine oneself to the most productive areas or areas which, though not particularly productive,
have shallow drilling, in which it is possible in a relatively short time to obtain a large number of wells for
exploitation...
Proceeding from the indicated propositions, it is planned in 1921 to concentrate
rotary drilling from two areas—Surakhany and Binaghady,
where it was applied almost exclusively, on the Surakhany area,
as the most productive, bringing the number of working rotary drilling
rigs to 12 and rod rigs to 6 for the completion of drilling operations
brought to great depth.
[46] With these shock drilling rigs and 12 rigs for rotary
drilling it is proposed to drill in 1921 approximately 10 thousand
sazhens of depth provided, of course, the necessary number of workers and materials are available,
since the majority of wells will be of great depth, consequently,
with low footage and with considerable auxiliary work
not yielding footage, such as cementing, pipe-cutting and so forth...